Donor guidelines during Covid-19 pandemic

We are confident that our current screening and processing guidelines ensure safety of donor milk however we are implementing new procedures from today (17^th March 2020) to protect our donors, staff and blood bike services.

As with other illnesses or infections, it is really important that you inform us as soon as you can if you or anyone in your household shows symptoms of possible Covid-19 infection including a persistent cough or high temperature. You must discard any milk expressed for 3 days prior to showing symptoms and must not express for the milk bank for a period of 14 days after the first symptoms appear.

With immediate effect, any driver or blood biker collecting milk from your house will do this without coming into contact with you or anyone in your household. The driver or biker will telephone you shortly before arriving at your house and ask you to leave your milk on the doorstep in a carrier bag with your name on for them to collect.

We understand that it will be difficult for new potential donors to have blood samples taken at their local GPs surgeries so we may be unable to recruit new donors in the current climate. To try to ensure we meet demand from hospitals we are removing our usual 9 month cut off period for donors so that you can donate until your baby is 18 months old if you would like to and feel able to. We are also removing any maximum per month donation amount.

Thanks for your ongoing support, please contact us if you have any questions.